Associate Professor Jessica Espey
IAS Summit: Rethinking Urban Inequalities
University of Southampton
Dr Jessica Espey is Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton and is Deputy Director (Research) of WorldPop. Her research focuses on governance and epistemology, specifically how data and diverse forms of evidence shape the international governance of sustainable development and climate change. At World Pop she works to support the development and uptake of high-quality research and methods for the construction of open and high-resolution geospatial data on population distributions, demographics and dynamics.
She has two decades of professional experience working in international development, within think-tanks, charities and the United Nations. From 2014-2020 she was a director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and prior to that she served as an Adviser to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia.
She has written extensively on the governance of sustainable development, with a particular focus on monitoring, accountability and data systems, and on global urban governance. Her most recent book, Science in Negotiation, is available from Springer Nature.
During their IAS Fellowship, Dr Robinson will be collaborating with Professor Trivik Verma from the Department of Geography and Environment.